About Amy

My name is Amy Porterfield.

I’m thrilled you’re here—because we’re a lot alike, you and me. We’re both trying to make a life we love out of what we do.

Which means neither of us can avoid one dreaded concept… self-promotion. As a small business owner, I bet you know firsthand how stressful marketing yourself and your business can be.

Well, not anymore. I create dead-simple educational tools that will get you more traffic, more leads and more sales—for less stress and zero drama.

Social media is a people business, and I’m a people person. Keep reading to find out how I got here, where I’m going, and where I can take YOU.

I’m Amy, and I love what I do. (And People Magazine. And “Real Housewives.” Shhh!)

I grew up in a very blue-collar household; my dad was a firefighter all my life, and my mom was a hair stylist. The number-one lesson my dad taught me was to find a way, any way, to become my own boss.

Because when you’re your own boss, you’re free—and no one can put a cap on what you make. That was stamped into my brain from the time I was a little girl.

As was the fact that my dad loved his job. I mean, crazy loved it.

He told me that if I found work I loved, everything else in my life would fall into place. And today I can honestly say I did both: got to be my own boss AND created the job that gets me excited to wake up in the morning. (It helps that going to the office means walking down the hall to my home office!)

OK, so I had that one brief foray into being a biker chick.

My first job out of college was marketing products and events—for Harley Davidson. Little old me, surrounded by tough motorcycle guys in leather? Yup.

I don’t know what it is about bikes, but I did learn how to ride and got my motorcycle license. I’m no biker chick, but something about it… alter ego, maybe?

After Harley, I moved on to working for Peak Performance Coach, Tony Robbins, first as Director of Content Development and later I managed large-scale online marketing campaigns.

It was a total culture shock at first, but the time I spent traveling the world with Tony Robbins was the most important learning time in my life.

Sure, there were some wild and surreal moments, like being in Fiji planning a script with Tony and Tom Selleck, a.k.a. Magnum PI, preparing an infomercial.

But I was still working for someone else, and I couldn’t help thinking of what my dad always said. I was away from my family when I wanted to be with them badly—especially my football-loving, Steeler-obsessedmain men: my hunky husband and my adorable stepson, who are everything to me. My ideas were sometimes overshadowed—inevitable in a big company.

MY VALUES

Hard work, but you have to be able to throw it all away for love and family

No drama

Acceptance – no judgment lives here

Wearing my heart on my sleeve

Embracing what’s next

But mostly, that social media should be something you enjoy, not dread.

My biggest worry, though? Once I reached a certain point, there was no more “up.”

So I decided to burn my boats.

One day, Tony called a meeting with some of the best minds in online marketing – including Frank Kern, Eben Pagen and Jeff Walker. As I sat in the meeting, a realization washed over me: the Internet was THE place to grow a business. MY business.

Everything I had only dreamed of was suddenly possible. I just had to get there.

Tony himself taught me one of the most important tactics I’ve ever learned: it’s called “Burn the Boats.” When you want to make something big happen, you have to commit—burn the boats and storm the island. Burn any vessel that could take you backwards or make you change your mind.

And so I did. I burned my boats, and left Tony Robbins to start my own agency. It was scary and exhilarating and stressful and wonderful all at once: everything starting a business should be.

But I quickly realized that I couldn’t provide one-on-one services without limiting the number of small businesses I touched.

Which is why I stopped consulting and got used to a camera instead.

I started my social media journey with many long hours on Twitter. I started a blog, too—and recorded my first cringe-worthy videos. But even those early videos were game-changers.

Being able to connect on such an intimate level?

There was nothing quite like it. It made me love what I did even more, and get the most loyal followers around. (Thanks, guys!)

Finally, after working with Mike Stelzner of SocialMediaExaminer.com, I discovered Facebook. It was a total love affair.

And it has a happy ending. (Hint: you’re in it.)

A year out of Robbins, I was approached by Wiley to co-write a Facebook for Dummiesbook—and I jumped on the opportunity.

Admittedly, the first time I did a live webinar, it was a mess. I was promoting my first product and forgot to add a link to the product in the slideshow—a classic rookie mistake!

But I stuck with it, and now I do tons of webinars every year—they’re my primary way to reach new audiences. In fact, nothing else has been so successful for growing and scaling my business.

I believe that social media is crucial to business today—but I don’t believe it needs to be stressful or take up hours of your life. Seriously. In fact, why don’t you sign up here and get my social media updates each week starting now—it’s a BIG help:

And thank you, thank you, thank you for stopping by. YOU are my business. And my business is to help YOUR business thrive.

Here’s to de-stressing your social media marketing… for good!

About Amy

Amy is a social media strategist and co-author of Facebook Marketing All-In-One for Dummies. She helps entrepreneurs across industries establish strategies to maximize the power of social media and increase the success of their online marketing efforts.